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Translation: Hello, good day. This is some of the Indonesian
Imani Williams learned while participating in a three-phase program
through Legacy International, an organization funded in part by the
U.S. Department of State.

Williams is a senior at Auburn High School who was chosen to be
part of the Legacy International experience, which culminated in a
leadership ambassador trip to Indonesia. She said her mother told
her about the program and encouraged her to apply, which led to her
receiving a $12,000 scholarship to travel to Indonesia.

Before embarking on her trip to Indonesia, which lasted from
Nov. 27 to Dec. 15, Williams attended phase one of the program in
July 2011, she said. Students from Indonesia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia
and other places visited the Global Youth Village in Virginia.

Williams and other American students were there to greet them
and spend time with them at the peace-building camp, Williams
said.

“It was amazing,” she said.

Phase two of the program required the students to conceptualize
and implement an environmental project in their home communities.
Williams began the Each One Teach One program in two Auburn
elementary schools.

“I started it to have students from the environmental club go
and teach students in the Extended Day Program at Genesee
(Elementary School) and Casey Park (Elementary School),” Williams
said. “We all did different things in our own communities that were
relevant.”

In late November, phase three of the program began with Williams
traveling to the other side of the globe to spend three weeks in
Indonesia. She and her American colleagues visited two islands and
four cities, she said. The students visited schools, taught
English, met mayors and U.S. ambassadors and helped the Indonesian
students with their environmental project from phase two, which was
a beach clean-up.

Williams explained that recycling and environmental awareness
are just beginning to take hold in Indonesia, so cleaning up the
beach attracted some attention and curiosity from people living
there.

“Indonesia is a growing country,” she said. “(The beach cleanup)
did a great job to raise awareness.”

In addition to cleaning up a beach, Williams and her fellow
students visited the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation. Williams
was able to meet a baby orangutan and learn about the
organization’s mission to raise and rehabilitate orangutans, get
them accustomed to surviving in the wild and release them when they
are ready to go back to nature.

There, Williams learned about how deforestation and illegal
logging contribute to the destruction of the orangutans’
habitat.

“Indonesia has, I believe, the world’s second fastest rate of
deforestation,” she said. “There are huge, huge issues.”

Williams said she learned how important it is to preserve the
rainforests of the world because the flora and fauna there are so
diverse and may hold the key to solving relevant human
problems.

As Williams walked through a rainforest at the Borneo Orangutan
Survival Foundation, she was told that it was a replanted
rainforest. The organization has been replanting the rainforest the
way it would have grown naturally.

“It was actually manmade, rebuilt,” she said. “It was
beautiful.”

After visiting the island of Borneo, Williams and her colleagues
visited the island of Java. There they visited Kaliandra, an
organization that teaches local people to work with the land in the
best way, both economically and environmentally.

“They help the locals,” she said. “They hire the locals and they
help them. They teach them to do business in the most
environmentally friendly manner.”

Williams also enjoyed the less formal times she spent with
Indonesian students, including a three-night stay in a school
dormitory. The students participated in a movie night with a
costume and skit contest.

While at the dormitory, Williams said the Indonesian students
asked her many questions about the United States. Many of them want
to come to the country for college, Williams said, and all they
know of America is what they see in movies. Williams said some of
the students felt a little bit of anxiety when they thought of
attending school in the states because of the large difference in
religious practice. Williams said Indonesia is 85 percent Muslim,
and has the largest Muslim population in the world.

Williams said that despite the cultural differences between her
and her Indonesian friends, she was treated with “overwhelming
kindness.” She said her two host families were very kind to her and
said that when she turned 17 (in Indonesia) everyone around her
made the occasion special because in Indonesia, there is no sweet
16, but there is a sweet 17.

“This trip reinforced for me a principle I already knew,” she
said. “After meeting people on the complete opposite side of the
world who live life differently from me but still could embrace me
and leave me feeling accepted and valued, I left with my own
personal experience that attests to the fact that we truly are all
human and can extend love and compassion even with all our
differences.”

Williams’ advice to other Americans?

“I encourage people to travel,” she said. “Indonesia is a
wonderful place to go.”

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